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Probable oil slicks on this Sentinel-1 radar satellite image, taken over the Taylor Energy site in the Gulf of Mexico at about 7:30 pm local time on February 14, caught our eye:

Sentinel-1 satellite radar image of the northern Gulf of Mexico, taken about 7:30 pm local time on February 14, 2017. Oil slicks are dark streaks. Ships and oil/gas platforms are bright spots. South Pass of the Mississippi Delta is at left. Image courtesy European Space Agency.

As usual, we can see a 9-mile-long slick emanating from that chronic oil leak that has been spilling oil continuously since 2004. The Taylor slick is drifting straight to the northeast away from the leak source on the seafloor. But the image is dominated by a thicker-looking 28-mile-long slick closer to shore. It seems to almost hook up with the Taylor slick on it’s east end, suggesting it could be a major continuation of the Taylor slick. This would make it one of the biggest slicks at Taylor we’ve ever observed; and if it is the Taylor slick, it makes a very unusual 180 degree turn. That’s possible, given the complex currents: outflow from the Mississippi River meets eddies spinning off the Gulf Stream, creating strong horizontal “shears” where the current on one side can be moving in a very different direction than on the other. But there may be a simpler explanation: this could be an oily slick caused by intentional bilge dumping from a moving vessel. Based on how the slick appears to be more pushed around by wind and current as you follow it back to the east, I’m guessing the vessel was moving from east to west, working its way around the tip of the Mississippi Delta parallel to shore.

Image above, labeled to identify oil slicks and the location of the chronic Taylor Energy leak. Possible vessel near west end of bilge slick marked by yellow circle. Sentinel-1 satellite radar image courtesy European Space Agency.

Dumping oily bilge is illegal in US waters, and we don’t often see this here — although it is a big problem elsewhere. In this case, checking against our daily stream of Automatic Identification System (AIS) ship-tracking data, we haven’t been able to identify a possible culprit. There is a small bright spot near the west end of the slick that is probably a small vessel — there are no platforms or other structures at this location. This could be the culprit. But it wasn’t broadcasting an AIS signal.

Detail from above, showing probable vessel located near west end of bilge slick. Is this the culprit? Sentinel-1 satellite radar image courtesy European Space Agency.

2016 has been a very mixed year for the environment. Despite some positive developments for conservation over the past year, there are even greater threats to public and ecological health looming on the horizon. We have a lot of work ahead of us in 2017, but your support can help us continue to hold government and industry accountable in the new year (while giving you a break on your taxes for 2016).

On November 9, 2016, the day after the U.S. elections made it clear that we will be facing at least four years of a pro-drilling, pro-mining, anti-regulation Administration, SkyTruth President John Amos wrote:

We believe governments and businesses work better to protect the environment, and to ensure human health and well being, when the consequences of their action and inaction are plain for all to see. Persistent public vigilance has always been necessary for a functioning democracy. It’s especially crucial when governments are disdainful of environmental protection and public health and safety, dismissive of science-based decisionmaking with public participation, and openly hostile toward the public ownership and long-term stewardship of our lands and waters.

Undated photo of Taylor Energy Platform #23051 before it was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Image Credit – Taylor Energy [link to archived version on the Wayback Machine]

Today, Jan. 20, Taylor Energy will host a public forum in Baton Rouge, La., to explain what efforts they have taken to respond to the ongoing oil spill in Mississippi Canyon Block 20 (MC-20) – the former site of Taylor Energy Platform #23051. Over eleven years ago Hurricane Ivan triggered a subsea landslide which destroyed the platform and buried 28 wells under a hundred or more feet of mud and sediment. The spill first came to public attention during the 2010 BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster, when GMC charter member SkyTruth observed the leak on satellite imagery and began investigating with GMC assets in the air and on the surface.

Above: Landsat 8 image from June 2014; one many satellite observations SkyTruth has catalogued over the past eleven years.

Oil still leaks from the site to this day, eleven miles off the coast of Louisiana, while the now-idled company’s efforts to stop the leak have remained a carefully guarded secret. In early 2015, an AP investigation pressed the U.S. Coast Guard to increase their estimated spill rate to an amount 20x higher than Taylor had ever acknowledged. In Sept. 2015, GMC partners, including the Waterkeeper Alliance, settled a law suit over the company’s lack of transparency about efforts to fix the leak. This forum was a condition of that settlement.

The Gulf Monitoring Consortium has the following questions for Taylor Energy, which, in one presentation posted in advance to the forum’s website called the events surrounding Hurricane Ivan, an “Act of God“.

1) What is the plan to stop this leak?

2) If the plan is to just let it go for the next 100 years, what research has been done to determine that the environmental harm would be minimal and acceptable? Why wasn’t the public involved in that decision making?

3) What lessons were learned and are they being applied to new permitting and drilling in the Gulf?

What do we know about slope stability and the risk of slope failure throughout the Gulf, especially in deepwater; and is that risk being incorporated into engineering and permitting?

What is the plan if a similar fate befalls a deepwater platform with 20 high-pressure producing oil wells?

What systems are in place to successfully shut in those wells in the event of a slope failure?

4) What is the estimated cost to the public of the lost oil and gas revenue if the decision is made to let the reservoir bleed out?

5) What were the various interventions that were deployed on the seafloor to try to capture the leaking oil and gas? How much oil and gas did they capture, and during what time periods? What was done with the captured oil and gas?

Our most recent trip around the sun was filled with growth and major (positive!) impact for the environment, so we’re inviting you to share in our success. Of course, SkyTruth is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit, so your tax-deductible donation before midnight tomorrow will reduce your 2015 tax bill and help us keep a sharp eye on the world in 2016.

Offshore Energy: For eleven years oil has leaked into the Gulf of Mexico from a point eleven miles off the Mississippi River Delta (aka the Bird’s Foot Delta). Our dogged reporting of this slow-motion oil spill finally caught the attention of the Associated Press. Their investigation ultimately pushed the U.S. Coast Guard to acknowledge a spill rate 20x higher than Taylor Energy had ever admitted. Then in September, Taylor Energy settled a lawsuit brought by the Waterkeeper Alliance and several of our other Gulf Coast partners over lack of transparency about what the company had done to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Fishing/Marine Conservation: While our programming team is hard at work developing the Global Fishing Watch platform to help tackle the ecological crisis of overfishing, we’ve also come across some major cases of maritime malfeasance.

This summer a film crew for National Geographic came to the office to learn more about what we are doing for marine conservation and how fishing transparency can encourage more sustainable fisheries management:

In 2015 we welcomed three new full-time members to our team, as well as two part-time programmers. Our staff traveled from Chile to Lisbon to talk about Global Fishing Watch, shared our big ideas for conservation at the Aspen Ideas Festival, and convened with mapping and remote sensing experts at Google’s GeoForGood and CartoDB’s State of the Map conference in NYC. Your tax-deductible contribution will help us continue to keep an eagle-eye on the planet and continue to share our vision for a better world.

As John said last month at the WWF Fuller Symposium at National Geographic, “The answer to the question, ‘Will technology save the planet?’ is clearly ‘no’ — people will save the planet, but technology will give them the inspiration and the tools…”

Predictably, some Louisiana lawmakers (is that really a good way to describe these folks?) are rushing to defend the now-defunct Taylor Energy company which, according to ex-Senator Mary Landrieu, should be “commended for its diligent, collaborative, and environmentally responsible work on this matter.”

“This matter” is a chronic leak that’s been pouring crude oil continuously into the Gulf for almost 11 years, and shows no signs of tapering off. Taylor Energy has declared — apparently with no explanation or corroboration by independent experts — there is nothing they can do, that wouldn’t cause worse harm to the environment. Federal officials estimate the leak will continue for another 100 years, until the reservoir is tapped out. Here’s a satellite image of the Taylor site just a few miles off the coast of the Mississippi Delta, showing a 21-mile-long slick extending northeast from the location of the buried, leaking wells. It was shot from NASA’s EO-1 satellite on July 3, using the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) instrument. It has some remarkable detail: a thin sheen, slightly darker than the adjacent Gulf waters, surrounding a thin pale-blue streak that indicates oil thick enough to have the distinct reflectance signature characteristic of crude oil. We estimate the sheen is, on average, 1 micron (one millionth of a meter) thick. The pale-blue core is much thicker, perhaps millimeters thick. This is consistent with direct observations and sampling of the Taylor slick conducted by researchers from Florida State University last summer.

Detail from July 3, 2015 ALI satellite image of Taylor Energy site showing 21-mile-long slick trailing off to the northeast. Note the line of small, scattered cumulus clouds and their matching shadows that seems to follow the slick (water particles forming around aerosols caused by evaporating hydrocarbons?).

Using our conservative rule of thumb — that a slick observable on satellite imagery is, on average, at least one micron thick — we calculate the 21-mile-long Taylor slick on July 3 represents at least 8,100 gallons of crude oil. And what did Taylor Energy report to the Coast Guard that same day? A slick 12 miles long containing 71 gallons.

Commendable indeed.

MODIS satellite image taken the same day (July 3, 2015). Sunglint patterns and various types of clouds make for a visually complicated image, but theTaylor slick appears as a pale line the same size, shape and orientation as in the more detailed ALI imagery above. Red dots indicate locations of oil spill reports submitted to the National Response Center (NRC) over the previous few weeks. The loose cluster of reports about 20 miles northeast of the Taylor Energy leak site suggests that those observers are sighting the far end of the Taylor slick.

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